Bathing Beauties and Predatory Lesbians

Chapter 3 explains how the Black Press featured the overt display and sexualization of black women’s bodies in the context of bathing beauty contests and recreation on public beaches and pools. The Black Press worked to transform pernicious notions of heterosexual black women as ugly, mannish, and uncivilized and meet their readers’ imagined desire for respectable and sexual images of African American women. However, chapter 3 also argues that this transformation was dependent on the demonization of black lesbians whom the Black Press cast as dangerous and predatory. Chapter 3 concludes that black bathing beauties’ photographs challenged vicious white stereotypes and aided a new generation of African American women’s attempts to reconstruct their public image even as they rendered the black lesbian as the embodiment of depravity.

Case study: Monitoring and risk management practices of blue–green algae blooms within the regional municipality of Halton

Cyanobacteria pose a threat to public health in waters affected by seasonal blooms. There have been sporadic occurrences of cyanobacterial blooms at an increasing number of public beaches in Halton Region, Ontario, Canada. Even though cyanobacteria may not be visibly present, the risk of exposure to cyanotoxins remains and requires consideration for an effective risk management and monitoring program. The objective of this case study is to provide best practices that may aid local Health Departments in setting up a cyanobacteria monitoring program. Public health inspectors are responsible for visual monitoring of public beaches that takes place on a weekly basis while conducting routine surveillance. Currently, when cyanobacteria are visually identified, a beach posting is issued. A complete risk assessment is completed to determine the acceptability of reopening the beach for public use. It is recommended to implement an approach that involves both visual monitoring and toxin testing using a field test kit. For a beach to be considered safe for bathing, surveillance should indicate a visual absence of a bloom and microcystin test results below Health Canada’s recreational water standard of 20 ppb. This case study highlights Halton Region’s response to cyanobacteria blooms in recreational waters in accordance with the prescribed protocol and guidance document.

Colistin-Resistant mcr-1-Positive Escherichia coli on Public Beaches, an Infectious Threat Emerging in Recreational Waters

ABSTRACT The emergence and rapid spread of colistin-resistant Escherichia coli carrying the mcr-1 gene have generated an urgent need to strengthen surveillance. We performed a meticulous investigation of strains of this sort, which resulted in the identification of international clones of E. coli carrying IncX4-plasmid-mediated mcr-1 and bla CTX-M genes in recreational waters of public urban beaches in cities with high tourist turnover, highlighting a new environmental reservoir.